Sweet, Sandy Crude

All the oil talk lately has been about shale extraction, and how it could soon become profitable. When oil is at $70 a barrel, shale extraction is a real possibility. Once economies of scale come into play (and some of the capital expenses have been amortized), it's thought shale extraction could remain profitable even when oil drops to the $35-40 range.

Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.

...

Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?

An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates.

Read the whole thing, since I snipped out all the scientifical bits.

In any case, it's comforting to know when I'm stuck in a wheelchair (or in the ground), my grandkids will probably still have the option of buying giant cars with massive V-8 engines.